A seminar at Lang is comfortable and demanding—comfortable because you’re among a small group of students who value your input and insight; demanding because your peers won’t settle for uninformed views and inert ideas. Instead, they expect fresh thinking and passionate debate—which is exactly what you expect of them.

Everyone sits at the same table to hold discussions about the most urgent issues in the social sciences, humanities, sciences, and the arts. How you cover all the assigned reading material isn’t up to your teacher, as it was in high school; it’s now a collective decision. "So much of the work revolves around discussion and dialogue,” Liz Hamby, a 2006 Lang graduate, said recently. “The amount of freedom and the responsibility of that freedom was challenging and impressive."

No question is too big or too small. Nothing is intellectually out of bounds. You cultivate intelligent viewpoints that will be heard and respected.

Is this a real democracy of learning? You are free to decide and responsible for whether the outcome translates into effective education.